Since the New Deal, Republicans have been on the wrong side of every issue of concern
to ordinary Americans; Social Security, the war in Vietnam, equal rights,
civil liberties, church- state separation, consumer issues, public education, reproductive
freedom, national health care, labor issues, gun policy, campaign-finance
reform, the environment
and tax fairness. No political party could
remain so consistently wrong by accident.
The only rational conclusion is
that, despite their cynical "family values" propaganda, the Republican Party
is a criminal conspiracy to betray the interests of the American people
in
favor of plutocratic and corporate interests, and absolutist religious groups.

servative Supreme Court justices that just aren't quite ideologically pure enough -- or willing to trash the Constitution in favor of his vision of a theocratic
Ameri-
ca. Most recently, His Holiness urged a more temporal solution
-- calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. One can only imagine why Chavez became the target of Robertson's ire.
Perhaps it's due to Chavez' champi-
oning of the interests of Venezuela's
previously unrepresented poor and dis-
possessed -- providing 'radical' measures such as public health services and land reform. Robertson's vast financial empire
(and sleazy business practices) and support of kleptocratic oligarchs over the poor could be expected to repulse
his 700 Club donors, if they weren't all credulous rubes. MORE

If we wind-up with a Shiite theocracy in Iraq, it can be spun to the Christers
as a model for a Christian theocracy here. Our "useful idiots" in talk radio
& FNC will eagerly "catapult the propaganda."

Fighting for the American way of life: Can freedom survive when democracy fails?by Jack Hughes
While not used very often to describe the Iraq war, in previous conflicts our
soldiers were said to be fighting for the "American way
of life." That
signature "way of life" included all the principles of a liberal democracy: political
equa-
lity, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of --
and from -- religion, redress of grievances through the democratic process of
voting in free and fair elections, and the essential American "up-by- your-own-bootstraps"
economic mobility rewarding hard work.

Sadly, today's American
way of life ain't what it used to be. The traditional American way of life
has been mugged -- subverted by a radical cabal who are ideologically opposed
to the hallmarks of the "American way of life" known to virtually every American
alive today.

Instead, the right-wing ideologues that have seized
control of our government are in pursuit of their own utopian fantasy of a govern-
ment-less
society, where the free market provides the answers to allsocietal needs.

Not coincidentally, this ideology just happens to relieve
the wealth-
iest sectors of our society of the tax liabilities that have
traditionally subsidized the services that eased the burden on the less affluent
classes, i.e., for infrastructure, education, health care and so on.

Since
the New Deal, it was virtually universally agreed that ensuring the
general welfare for the poorer classes and providing an economic order that fostered
upward econo-
mic mobility to reward ability and hard work even benefited
the here-
ditary plutocracy in the long run since they too share in
the benefits of a healthy, prosperous, stable state. No more. Egalitarianism
is out. Corporate feudalism is in.

Today's "conservative"
economic theory posits a zero-sum game. According to modern conservative economic
theorists, the best a government can hope for is that wealth "trickles-down"
to the urban peasantry. Active poverty-fighting measures like increasing
the minimum wage, subsidized child care, educationand job training and national health care are considered heretical, since they would
reduce corporate profits, and theoretically, make the rich less rich by increa-
sing
their taxes. The interests of the already-wealthy few trump the
interests of the many.

Consider these other radical "con-
servative"
policies that, only 25 years ago, would have rightfully consigned
their advocates to kook status:

• Privatizing social security

•
Running-up trillion dollar budget deficits while continuing to cut taxes
on corporations and the rich

• Encouraging the outsourcing of US jobs
to cheap overseas labor markets

• Stealthily working to eliminate
overtime pay

• Use of "privatized" vote tallying with unverifiable
results

• Appointment of federal judges holding radical judicial
philosophies

• Allowing increases in pollution

• Direct
federal subsidies to churches

• That the UN is "irrelevant" if
it doesn't rubber-stamp questionable US policies

• Preemptive war based
on false pretenses

• Torture of alleged terror suspects

Based
on the tax, health-care, and employment policies enacted by successive
Republican administra-
tions, we're now seeing declines
in the standard
of living of middle-
class Americans, with greater upward social mobility
now being achieved in the European social democracies than in the USA.

And
torture, for God's sake. Torture as official US policy!

How did we reach this
state? It wasn't by accident. It was the result of a 30-year plan that had
been carefully crafted and lavishly funded (totaling up to a billion dollars)
after the electoral debacle of the 1964 Barry Goldwater cam-
paign. Interestingly,
Goldwater himself came to refute many of the radical tenets of the so-called
Gold-
water Revolution, but the revolution-
aries simply branded
him as senile and redoubled their efforts.

The sustained efforts
of the wealthy right-wing foundations and think tanks have paid off handsomely.
These organizations are so well funded that they can even afford to recruit
and pay promising young prospects while they are still in college -- adding them
to the "farm team" as they are groomed, pains-
takingly prepared and handsomely
paid for both the honing and deli-
very of deceptive rhetoric for
media appearances.

There are no counterparts on the left to these
professional sophists. Touting for the rich and powerful can be a lucrative
career for those long on ambition but short on ethics. Liberals must rely on
"amateurs" motivated only by love of country to defend the interests
of
ordinary Americans.

In spite of the feudalist right's millions of dollars
spent and their legions of brilliantly sociopathic spokesmen, the truth
was still a hard obstacle to overcome, and Democrats managed to maintain rough
electoral parity -- until now.

Of course, the press used to be
a
watchdog for the interests of ordinary Americans. But again, no more. Media
consolidation has made the once proud tradition of American journalism into one
big

Any
doubt of this reality should have been put to rest after the 2004 election when,
as in 2000 and 2002, exit polling inexplicably proved incapable of accurately
predicting elec-
toral results. The corporate press' response? Maybe we
should just abolish exit polling. Yes, that would be a lot less embarrassing…

Having
decided that the electoral process offered too iffy a return
for their investment, the radical right decided that a more direct strategy was
necessary. The technology of electronic balloting provided the means and the Republi-
cans
most definitely had the motive and opportunity.

Only
the most naïve can doubt that right-wing radicals seized the presidency by undemocratic
means both in
2000 and 2004. The mid-term elections of
2002 are similarly tainted -- just look at the "upset" GOP victory
over Max
Cleland in Georgia. Any further doubt should be erased by the GOP's threatened
use of the "nuclear option" (effectively banning the use of filibusters by Senate
minorities) over Senate Democrat filibusters of Bush's judicial nominees.

This proves that Republicans do not fear ever being relegated to minority
status in the Senate again -- ever. Why should they? They've proved
that they can steal elections with impunity, with no angry mobs in the street
demanding justice or so much as a peep from the mainstream media.

Life
in post-democratic America continues to go on as before. We're still a free
society (well, except for the Patriot Act's encroachments), albeit with an unprovoked
imperial war being waged and wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer
hands. Why should we be surprised? That's always the pattern in fascist
plutocracies.

But for those who are too busy worrying about who's
being voted off the island, or who the next American Idol will be, and for those
too complacent or naïve or lazy to worry about the loss of the essence of our
American way of life --democracy -- here's one great big lollapalooza of a caveat:
After the loss of our democracy, can the loss of our freedoms be far
behind? In Other NewsDNC report clueless on magnitude of vote fraud
The DNC says it sought access to the computers used to record and tabulate
Ohio votes, but those same county boards of election that didn't control the data
-- and the voting machine manufacturers who did — declined, citing "security
concerns" and "vendors pointed out their extreme discomfort with providing this
sort of access to a partisan organization." MORE

The GOP is certain to win in 2006, unless...
Here's the very bad news - the Democrats will almost certainly lose in 2006
and again in 2008, for three essential reasons: (a) the GOP and the Bush junta
simply cannot afford to lose, (b) they can prevent their defeat no matter what
the voters have to say about it (as they have in the last three elections), and
(c) apparently the Democratic Party, the media, and law enforcement are unable
and/or unwilling to do anything about it. MORE

Seymour Hersh: Did Washington manipulate
Iraq vote outcome?
As the election neared, the Administration repeatedly sought ways—including
covert action—to manipulate the outcome and reduce the religious Shiite influence.
Not everything went as planned. MOREWhite House aides, GOP close ranks around Rovein Plame affair
White House aides were in a state of mania around this time two years ago,
“intensely focused on discrediting” Joseph Wilson after he wrote his now-famous
New York Times op-ed piece. Karl Rove’s animus toward Wilson was so intense
that curiosity arose within the White House about it. When asked about this,
Rove reportedly said, “He’s a Democrat." MORE

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